This area of our collection is designed to collect significant changes in today’s South Holland people, places and events which will form tomorrow’s history. Our first entry records the changes in the Dryden shop.
DRYDEN & Son, the prominent Spalding jeweller established in 1927 by William Dryden.
William was born in Falmouth where he served his apprentice ship before moving to Buckingham as a watchmaker. It was here that he met Mr G W Gibbs, who moved to Spalding and founded Gibbs, the shoe shop.
Through his friendship with Mr Gibbs, William Dryden followed to Spalding and took work as a watchmaker to Henry Lamming in Hall Place. When he started his own business in 1927 it was in a small in Victoria Street. He was joined by his, Ernest in 1929.
They moved to larger premises in the town’s Sheep Market just before the Second World War, at the end of which they moved to the Market Place. But it wasn’t until 1976 when Millet’s the camping shop, left Spalding that the size of the shop was doubled.
Ken Dryden joined the company in 1955, his brother John in 1962 and Richard in 1965.
Over the years the family has taken over several local jewellers and had shops in Spalding, Holbeach, Wisbech and Stamford the latter traded under the name of Rodgers & Son.
Ken Dryden trained as a watchmaker and qualified as a Fellow of the British Horological Institute in 1958. In May 1987. Both Ken and Richard passed exams for the Retail Jewellers Diploma. Ken received top marks in the country and was awarded the Greenbough trophy at the Goldsmiths Hall in London.
6 responses
I am pleased to find information about the shop ..I have a box which belonged to my much loved Nana who lived in Moulton in around 1927 when she was 18 ..She married my Grandfather in that year . Soon I will be passing on the items from the box to her son when we sort out my mothers jewellry
Hi Heather
That is so lovely to hear, I am the great grand daughter to William Dryden and am sitting here showing my daughter her ancestry.
Hopefully you will connect up. Regards Geoff
Hi everyone. I actually worked at Drydens in the run up to Mrs Drydens retirement & I thoroughly enjoyed my years there & learnt such a lot about jewellery & finally went on to work in the trade for nearly 12 years meeting some wonderful people along the way. I still go in to the old shop now which has become another jewellery shop.
Hi everyone. I actually worked at Drydens in the run up to Mrs Drydens retirement & I thoroughly enjoyed my years there & learnt such a lot about jewellery & finally went on to work in the trade for nearly 12 years meeting some wonderful people along the way. I still go in to the old shop now which has become another jewellery shop.
Thanks for sharing your memory, Jan.